You know those cute pictures you see on Facebook where a pregnant women takes pictures of her growing belly every week? I was just thinking the other day that no one seems to continue taking those belly pictures for the weeks after the baby was born. The shrinking belly is just as much as part of the whole experience as the growing belly, right?
In an effort to be cool and different, or maybe uncool and entertaining, here goes a picture gallery you probably won’t find anywhere on Facebook. It pretty much explains why people are still walking by me on the street telling me “Congratulations!!” when I don’t have any children with me.
I can only post these because this week I found out I am back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Yay! The last picture was taken a few days ago. Here goes…(gulp)
(L-R) Day 4, day 9, day 44.
Cool Mum knocked her casting video out of the park, yes? Well, Project Mom posted that they’re accepting submissions from dads, too, and I remembered that I’m a dad. A cool one, as a matter of fact. So, I’m contributing to the “Put the Cool Fam on TV” cause.
WHO I AM
I’m Eric Corpus, better known as Cool Dad around these parts. I blog because I want to move people, often to move them to laugh, but also to move them to think or even move them to move, as in take their lives to a completely new place.
OUR STORY
CM elegantly summarized our New York story in her video. It’s been a rollercoaster. (Here’s a fun slideshow of our first year.) The miraculous way that I got a job, living in a 200 sq ft studio apartment for six months, moving between six different apartments in the first year, quite possibly being the shortest man on any given subway car. In our brief time here, we’ve been touched by birth and death. The inconvenience and discomfort of the city makes the two years seem much longer, but we are far from done.
MY SIDE OF THE STORY
Every dad that I know here is full-speed in his career. I’m 33, and I’m just gaining speed. Long ago, I earned a degree in engineering, but I chose to chase my dreams and played in a rock band for 10 years instead. Now, with a wife and two kids to support, I have to figure out what I want to do for, oh… the rest of my life.
The opportunities of New York are unparalleled, but so is the competition. The city is exhilarating and exhausting. These are the questions that I live with:
How do I:
- Establish a career, which will probably require more than 40 hours a week?
- Find quality time with my two sons?
- Devote time and energy to Cool Mum?
- Support CM in maintaining the household?
- Find time for myself, especially when our family is squished into one bedroom?
AND can I still be cool in the process?
BUT IT’S ALL GOOD
These are deep life issues, and I love it. The conflicts are heavily outnumbered by the moments of love and community and laughter and silliness. When you look at videos like this and this and this or read posts like this and this, you can tell that we’re having a good time. We want a fun life, and we thank God that we have it.
LAS MADRES
I’m proud to feel welcomed by the moms who follow our site. They’ve been sources of encouragement and help. And it’s been fun finding kindred spirits through Facebook and Twitter.
We hope that our story will inspire anyone leaning forward to take some leap of faith. At the very least, we hope that we’ll get an LOL out of you. That would be cool.
A kinda cool picture of Cool Dad (aka Eric Corpus) that was required by Project Mom.
A TV production company is looking for mom bloggers to be part of a reality show. Cool Dad thinks I might have a chance because what other mom is foolish enough to willingly live the way we live, right? If they like my video, they’ll call me in to interview at the big BlogHer conference here in NYC in a few weeks. Yikes. I always enjoy seeing CD step into the cameraman/director/editor role, so I agreed to all this. Here’s the final product!
Oh yeah, and some of you might notice that we taped this right after I cut off (by myself) about 8 inches of hair for some upcoming video posts. Check back later this week to watch me butcher my hair for the sake of frugality!
Did anyone else do this? If so, please post a link in the comments. And in general, would you be willing to be part of a reality show?
Post a comment (6)Jennifer Garner went out for a stroll with her two girls in New York the other day. I wish I could say that I ran into her. I also wish that Cool Baby would stop waking Cool Newbie up from his naps. But seeing this article on Jennifer made me wonder if I’m still cool now that I have two kids. Let’s see –
1. THE LOOK
JG can wear an LBD that short because she has a nanny to help her out. If you’re by yourself and you’re always bending over to help the kids, you’ll earn a bad reputation on the playground. That’s why I often opt for the black nursing tanktop and maternity jorts. [-5 cool points] At least I was cool enough to wear a similar LBD on a date night when I was 9 mos pregnant.
2. THE STROLLER
JG’s three-wheeled stroller, Bob, could easily be friends with my Phil & Ted. [+2 cool points]
3. ENTOURAGE
JG’s entourage includes Victor Garber, an award-winning television, movie, and theater actor that played her father in Alias. Perhaps because some guy named Ben Affleck couldn’t make it that day. My entourage includes, um…Cool Dad? [-3 cool points]
NET CHANGE: -6 COOL POINTS
I’ll point out that Jennifer Garner has a little more experience because her kids are older. My only excuse is that I’ve only been a mom of two for six weeks, so sometimes I sacrifice cool points for the sake of just getting by.
***UPDATE 7/25: I went to church today with my infant and toddler, without Cool Dad or any kind of entourage, and wore a different little black dress! I did it! A couple of close calls with Cool Baby about to lift my dress. Other than that, I was okay!
Post a comment (5)Continuing to catch up with the new Cool Fam of Four, we have been
THANKFUL
(I was thinking of doing all “ex-” words to carry on with the long Christian tradition of alliteration, but I decided against taking two hours to write this post.)
It was a hard pregnancy for Cool Mum. Her first trimester was met with awful morning sickness. And then she was diagnosed with gestational diabetes, which turned her diet and life all upside down. And she had an energetic Cool Baby to care for during all of the nausea and then the hunger.
Through the difficulties though, we have a healthy Cool Newbie, and we are SO thankful to God for the new little guy. He already has been a blessing to us and neighborhood family. Cool Baby is crazy about his new baby brother and has been very gentle with him. Also, since CN is nursing, his poop doesn’t stink. Praise the Lord!
In addition to being exhausted and thankful, we have been
SQUISHED
We’ve mentioned it before, but we four (Cool Mum, Cool Baby, Cool Newbie, and myself) are sharing one 8′x8′ bedroom in the Cool Duplex. I was hoping that anti-gravity machines would be invented by now so that I could just float around the room to get what I need. Unfortunately, it’s already 2010 and no anti-grav machines are available for home use.
So, instead, when I go to bed (after everyone else), I tiptoe, climb, and contort my body to get by CM’s bed, CB’s bed, and CN’s bed, all without waking any of them. Silent, surgical precision, which might come in handy should I decide to become a Navy SEAL.
By God’s grace, CN’s crying hasn’t woken up CB much at all. That was our main concern: that CN’s crying would keep CB awake, thus resulting in two cranky, tired boys. But CB has been snoozing through the late-night crying sessions, and so have I. I usually wake up when I hear CN crying, but I don’t get cranky at work after a short night’s sleep (though it’s fun to throw a tantrum at the office and collapse when someone tries to escort me out).
This bedroom is a sight to behold, so we’ll have a video tour soon.
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